Tag: Citrix

Citrix Case Study: Saint Francis Hospital

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Citrix Case Study: Saint Francis Hospital

Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center is an acute care hospital located in Hartford, Connecticut. Since its founding by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Chambéry in 1897, Saint Francis has grown into New England’s largest Catholic hospital, with 617 beds and major clinical concentrations in oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, rehabilitation, and women and infant services.

The challenge: Consolidating 34 legacy applications into a single EMR Platform and addressing their Mobile device risk growth.

As an early innovator in the healthcare industry, they were already deploying computerized physician entry (CPOE) systems far back as 20 years ago.  This was at the time before patient management software were an American healthcare standard.  At present however, the IT leaders in the organization have recognized that they need to simplify and consolidate their 34 legacy applications into a single unified electronic medical record (EMR) platform if they want to continue to be ahead of the industry.  This is especially challenging when considering that a majority of the hospital’s doctor’s work in independent offices.

The Solution: Deploying a new EMR system across thousands of workstations and mobile devices

Saint Francis had already been using Citrix technology for years, specifically Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp (now VirtualDesktop and VirtualApp respectively).  These products helped Saint Francis with their on-demand application delivery for both their physical and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).  However, the main problem they encountered after they did a preliminary security audit was that there were security gaps due to the approach they took with mobile devices.  So to ensure that they kept their users empowered with the choice of their own device, they decided to also use XenMobile to help lessen the security threats. “When XenMobile arrived on the scene, we were able to get all the features we wanted, along with a simple licensing package from a vendor we already trusted.” Says Paul Dzierwinski, manager of systems administration at Saint Francis.

After 18 months of preparation, the hospital was successful in transferring their 1.3 million patient records in a smooth rollout.

Key Benefits

Helping ensure the timely launch of a new enterprise-wide platform

  • The team checked with all workstations to ensure that during launch period that each endpoint would run smoothly.

Facilitating the exchange of patient information and reducing medical errors

  • The streamlined EMR system helped convenience customers so that patient records could be shared securely via the system to the intended recipient, be it hospitals, doctors or healthcare entities.

Enabling anytime, anywhere access to EMR data as part of a larger BYOD initiative

  • The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiative has helped end users have a seamless experience while making sure that Saint Francis has a degree of control for security, being able to wipe a lost phone is one of the possibilities.

To learn more about Citrix products, you can visit our product page or you may contact us at 893-9515 and we would be happy to help you!

Citrix Connect: A Closer look into Citrix SD-WAN for your Business Critical Application

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Citrix Connect: A Closer look into Citrix SD-WAN for your Business Critical Application

Looking to improve and secure connectivity and app performance for every location?

In today’s digital age, businesses rely heavily on network connectivity and applications to keep their operations running smoothly. A delay or a failure in network connectivity or an application can cost a business time, money, and even customers. Therefore, it is crucial for businesses to have a reliable and efficient network infrastructure in place that can handle their business-critical applications.

Citrix Connect: A Closer Look into Citrix SD-WAN for Your Business Critical Application is an article that will guide you through the benefits of Citrix SD-WAN and how it can help your business optimize its network and application performance.

What is Citrix SD-WAN?

Citrix SD-WAN is a software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) solution that provides secure and reliable network connectivity. It is a virtual overlay network that sits on top of your existing WAN infrastructure, such as MPLS, broadband, or LTE. Citrix SD-WAN optimizes your network and application performance by intelligently routing traffic based on business policies and network conditions. It also provides end-to-end encryption and secure access to cloud and SaaS applications.

How Does Citrix SD-WAN Work?

Citrix SD-WAN uses a hybrid architecture that combines the best of both worlds: private MPLS and public broadband. It enables you to leverage multiple network links, such as MPLS, broadband, and LTE, to create a virtual overlay network that provides secure and reliable connectivity. Citrix SD-WAN uses a centralized management platform that provides visibility and control over your network and application performance. It also uses advanced algorithms to dynamically route traffic based on business policies and network conditions, such as latency, jitter, and packet loss.

Join us in our upcoming event, Citrix Connect, as we learn first hand from our Citrix experts from Singapore on how you can improve your app performance while bringing down your overall expenses! 

The event will be on May 22, 2019 from 10AM to 2PM at the Discovery Primea Makati, Shakespeare function room.

Get a chance as well to win raffle prizes at the event! 

You may contact us at 893-9515 loc 102 to lean more on how you and your company can register for this workshop!

Simplify your Business Networks with Citrix SD-WAN!

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Simplify your Business Networks with Citrix SD-WAN!

You may have heard by now of the new technology that’s been getting a lot of buzz over the past years, software-defined WAN or SD-WAN.  This exciting technology enables organizations to reduce network complexity and cost while improving flexibility, security, availability, and visibility.  Citrix has made use of this technology and improved on the concept into what is now known as Citrix SD-WAN.

Citrix SD-WAN builds reliable WAN from different network links such as MPLS, broadband, 4G LTE, Satellite, etc.  It also is able to constantly monitor the condition of every link with its unique per-packet selection algorithm which also makes use of instant path selection decisions as each packet comes into the SD-WAN for transmission.  In turn, results in having the best path chosen at each given moment.  When users or the applications they use request for more bandwidth, Citrix SD-WAN can distribute the traffic using all available links which creates a secure virtual path through the aggregation of all of the individual links, so no link stays passive.

When your network has issues with bandwidth usage, the improvement of performance that users will see is not only felt through more bandwidth, but through the enablement of QoS control over link types that don’t usually provide QoS such as the internet.

Some key features in which Citrix SD-WAN can simplify your business network:

Centralized management and configuration of all devices. leveraging the use of templates for WAN, QoS and Firewall configurations. No more logging into each branch router to add a QoS rule or access-list for a new application – you just add to a global template and it’s automatically updated on all branches.

Zero Touch Deployment (ZTD). It makes a huge difference in large scale deployments. The branch appliances can automatically connect to the Citrix ZTD service in the cloud and download the required configuration, licenses, and software updates. No need to login to the appliance, just plug the cables. All controlled from the central management and secured by built-in authentication.

Improved visibility. Since all traffic passes through SD-WAN, it can give you a much deeper understanding of what is going on in the network, up to the application-level with its built-in DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) capabilities. Not only will you get visibility into the most used applications, it can also provide application-level QoE (Quality of Experience) measurements.

To learn more about Citrix SD-WAN, you can check out our Citrix Product page here or contact us directly at 893-9515 and we will be happy to answer your inquiries!

HPE Announces SimpliVity Support for Microsoft Hyper-V and SimpliVity Workspaces for Citrix

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May 8, 2018 – Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced that HPE SimpliVity 380 would now be able to run with Microsoft Hyper-V and they have partnered with Citrix to be a Citrix Workspace Appliance Partner.  With these new offerings, HPE hopes to enhance its ability to provide high-performance virtual applications and desktops ensuring a faster and easier way to deliver secure digital workspaces in today’s hybrid cloud environment while also increasing its customer’s hypervisor options.

HPE SimpliVity 380 with Microsoft Hyper-V offers businesses with an easier IT infrastructure solution which simplifies the data center by converging servers, storage and storage networking into one simple to manage, software-defined platform so that businesses will not be limited by the legacy IT infrastructure which cannot make use of the current IT environment.

This has resulted in an increased business agility and economics in the cloud in an on-premise solution.  With the pre-integrated, all-flash, hyperconverged building block simplifies IT by combining all infrastructure and advanced data services for virtualized workloads – this includes VM-centric management and mobility, data protection and guaranteed data efficiency.

The latest HPE SimpliVity 380 with Microsoft Hyper-V solution offers HPE SimpliVity customers the following core benefits:

Enables VM centric management and mobility

HPE SimpliVity hyperconvergence enables policy-based, VM-centric management abstracted from the underlying hardware to simplify day-to-day operations. VMware customers benefit from this core value with 95% seeing value and IT simplification. Now Microsoft Hyper-V customers can achieve the same benefit.

Data protection

Customers now have access to a hyperconverged solution with full-featured, built-in backup and recovery at no additional cost. These data protection features include the resilience, built-in backup, and bandwidth-efficient replication needed to ensure the highest levels of data integrity and availability, eliminating the need for legacy data protection.

Data efficiency

Efficiency is delivered by powerful built-in data services including in-line deduplication and compression and novel data architecture to speed business continuity and enable workload mobility. Guaranteed data efficiency saves 90 percent capacity across storage and backup combined and the benefits include slashing recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) from days or hours to seconds, with a guaranteed 60-second restore for a 1 TB VM.

Besides the Hyper-V partnership with Microsoft, HPE has also partnered with Citrix with a collaboration between the two on a solution portfolio integration, which includes the new HPE SimpliVity 380 with Microsoft Hyper-V, in the Citrix HCI Workspace Appliance Program.  So that the customers don’t have to create their own solutions to deliver their virtualized application and desktops, the HPE and Citrix solution is already pre-integrated and pre-tested in the SimpliVity appliance.  Customers will also find that the appliance program will make it easier to deliver new workspace solutions while being managed seamlessly with Citrix during the course of its lifecycle.  Thus creating a new standard for customers to easily deploy their digital workspaces with multi hypervisor, multi-cloud flexibility resulting in truly a top-class digital collaboration and borderless, productive workplace.

To learn more about these partnerships, you may find the original article here or you may contact us directly at 893-9515 and we will be happy to answer your inquiries!

New updates for XenApp and XenDesktop for November 2017

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New updates for XenApp and XenDesktop for November 2017

November was a great month for Citrix users as updates for XenApp and XenDesktop, which you can download now with the release of patch v.7.16. Updates (as well as compliance information) for the ever popular XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR was also added just this November.  Below is a summary of some of the new updates:

User Experience

Significant user experience enhancements for both XenApp and Xendesktop Service and on-premises deployments in v.7.16, which was first introduced on our cloud services:

Real time user experience optimizations with Adaptive Transport

Only Citrix can dynamically adjust its HDX Adaptive Transport technology in mid-session to adapt to changing network conditions in real time to deliver the best possible high-definition user experience.

Introducing full browser content redirection, not just HTML5 video redirection

 Extending the capabilities of our content redirection technology, XenApp and XenDesktop now enable the full contents of a web browser, not just the HTML5 video, to be rendered on the client for maximum server scalability and optimal user experience.

Enhanced multi-monitor graphics quality with Citrix Receiver for Windows

Many users leverage multiple monitors across their virtual app and desktop sessions to optimize productivity. Now Citrix Receiver for Windows 4.10 makes multi-monitor configuration easier than ever.

Extending the power of Windows 10 S with Citrix Receiver

Windows 10 S is a streamlined OS for security and superior performance that only runs applications delivered from Microsoft Store. This means many existing Win32 apps will not run locally on Windows 10 S. The most secure way to get access to these business-critical Win 32 apps is through Citrix XenApp.

Improved graphics experience with H.265 and integrated 3D Pro VDA installer

With ever-increasing improvements to video resolution, Citrix is extending its codec capabilities by incorporating H.265 codec into XenApp and XenDesktop Platinum edition. By leveraging new H.265 hardware with XenApp and XenDesktop with NVIDIA GPUs, you will notice improved graphics performance while reducing bandwidth consumption by up to 50%.

Expanding our industry-first Windows Continuum virtual desktop experience

 XenDesktop, with XenServer, was the first and only desktop virtualization solution to deliver Windows Continuum experience with Windows 10 virtual desktops. Now, XenDesktop is expanding its industry-leading Windows Continuum virtual desktop technology by enabling a Windows 10 virtual desktop to recognize when the user switches from a physical tablet to a physical desktop and automatically toggle the virtual desktop between tablet and desktop mode.

To read more about the November updates, please visit the original article here!  You may also learn more about Citrix on our product page or directly contact us at 893-9515.

Simplify and Collaborate your Work with ShareFile!

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Simplify and Collaborate your Work with ShareFile!

2017 was a transformative year for Citrix ShareFile. ShareFile helped companies (and continuous to) with their cloud journey by creating efficiency in their work by allowing users to collaborate in the digital workspace from anywhere.  Even after helping many companies with their collaboration, they continued to improve ShareFile; they added additional features earlier this year such as Information Rights Management to create a better tool for their customers.  However, they aren’t finished with their improvements as they have just released the following additional features to ShareFile:

Data Migration Service

A service that offers to help customers migrate their data from legacy file servers and other data sources in to ShareFile.  This service provides a frictionless experience for customers who want to set up with ShareFile while getting all their data in one environment as simply as possible.

Custom Workflows

ShareFile Custom Workflows streamline and automate the repeated, time-consuming, manual document-centric processes that customers face each day. This solution enables customers to combine mobile forms, triggers, and actions into a tailored, automated workflow that benefits both IT administrators and everyday users, including the mobile workforce. The latest updates bring this functionality to mobile devices and Custom Workflows now supports on-premises zones.

Microsoft Integrations

ShareFile is the perfect complement to Microsoft Office.  ShareFile for Outlook — a new Microsoft Outlook add-on — brings ShareFile functionality to Outlook for Mac and Outlook Online (Office 365, Outlook Web Access, and Outlook.com) users. Customers using on-premises StorageZones can now take advantage of native Office mobile app integrations and offer collaborative web editing, thanks to our integration with Microsoft Office Online Server (OOS).

ShareFile also enhances Office365 investments by providing electronic signatures, co-editing, supporting hosted desktop solutions, supporting external collaboration, direct integration with OneDrive for Business and other data sources, so users can access all their data from one environment. Collaboration can happen in one environment and data is available anywhere, on any device, at any time with direct integration with Microsoft Teams.

To learn more about ShareFile and other Citrix products, visit our product page or you can contact us at 893-9515 for more details.

Your Data at Large: Some of the Common Security Pitfalls

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Your Data at Large: Some of the Common Security Pitfalls

With data mobility’s rise, you would expect that security of data would increase as well.  However, many of the controls to mitigate the risk of data exposure still rely on traditional protection.  Direct attacks, simple mistake, and even negligence are still major reasons as why data is lost.  Below are some of the most common examples of common security pitfalls:

  • Loss or destruction of endpoints
  • Using consumer-grade collaboration and file sharing tools
  • Transferring files over insecure media including USB drives
  • Emailing sensitive information to personal email accounts
  • Social engineering (i.e. phishing) – the human factor and malware

These days, we use new IT services built on multiple cloud infrastructures to work in conjunction with the legacy and custom applications (business critical apps) built on-prem, this results in business data sprawled across multiple devices and locations.  This makes the traditional enterprise perimeter almost completely eroded.  The industry’s response has been to solve each gap in security with slew of security products, which each have their own unique policies, capabilities and limitations.  This creates even more complexity in the already complex problem which can do ultimately do more damage than help.

In the global study from Citrix and The Ponemon Institute, they  discovered that:

  • 64 percent of respondents say their organization has no way to effectively reduce the inherent risk of unmanaged data (e.g. downloaded onto USB drives, shared with third parties, or files * with no expiration date)
  • 79 percent of respondents are worried about security breaches involving high-value information
  • 52 percent of respondents do not feel that their security infrastructure facilitates compliance and regulatory enforcement with a centralized approach to controlling, monitoring and reporting of data

That requires a purpose-built architecture, one that is designed and hardened for security from the ground up. Integral to this architecture is the inherent security Citrix provides by:

The solution to the problem?  Control must be given back to IT while delivering security to the business without affecting the users experience.  This type of architecture is inherent in the security Citrix provides by:

  • Centralizing and keeping data off endpoints
  • Containerizing and encrypting data on mobile devices
  • Controlling access to data contextually
  • Using file level access and control (DLP and IRM) for data in motion
  • Partnering with industry leaders to protect data

At the end of the day, people need and want to work efficiently, if we make data sharing onerous it would create more problems rather than help solve them.

To learn more about Citrix products, please visit our product page or call us directly at 893-9515.

Citrix Synergy Comes to Manila!

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Citrix Synergy Comes to Manila!

Bringing the best of Synergy to you!

You are invited to join us and hear how Citrix can help you take the next steps towards building your secure digital workspace.

We will share the vision, key insights, and technology updates from Synergy ‘17 that will show you how to realize the full benefits of cloud while avoiding complexity and security challenges. IT and users co-create a software-defined perimeter that protects the business, data, and infrastructure. Digital workspaces secure and integrate technologies, platforms, devices, and clouds, ensuring that organizations can operationalize the future of work and drive business forward.

To register, provide your details HERE!

Program

Venue

To register, provide your details HERE!

About HPE Synergy

HPE Synergy is a composable infrastructure solution that allows organizations to rapidly create and deploy IT resources in a flexible and efficient manner. The solution is designed to eliminate the silos of traditional data center infrastructure by allowing for the sharing and pooling of resources across multiple workloads and applications.

At the heart of HPE Synergy is the Composer software-defined intelligence engine. Composer enables IT administrators to quickly create and provision logical resources from physical infrastructure components such as compute, storage, and fabric resources. These resources can be rapidly composed and recomposed based on the needs of specific workloads or applications, allowing for the creation of dynamic and highly adaptable infrastructure.

The hardware components of HPE Synergy are based on a modular design that allows for easy expansion and scaling of resources. The compute modules are based on the latest Intel Xeon processors, while the storage modules can support a range of technologies such as SAS, SATA, and NVMe. The fabric modules provide high-speed connectivity between compute and storage resources, and support a variety of networking protocols such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and InfiniBand.

One of the key benefits of HPE Synergy is its ability to support a wide range of workloads and applications, including virtualized workloads, containerized workloads, and bare-metal applications. This flexibility is enabled by the integration of a variety of software technologies such as VMware vSphere, Red Hat OpenShift, and Docker.

HPE Synergy also provides a range of management tools that allow IT administrators to monitor and control infrastructure resources, automate routine tasks, and optimize resource utilization. These tools include HPE OneView, which provides a unified management interface for all HPE Synergy components, and HPE Intelligent System Tuning, which optimizes server performance based on workload characteristics.

Citrix Announces NetScaler Secure Web Gateway Solution in NetScaler 12.0

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Citrix Announces NetScaler Secure Web Gateway Solution in NetScaler 12.0

Enterprises now are facing more and more attacks on their security from web sessions caused by their employees visiting compromised or malicious websites.  Which in turn can lead to malware or botnet installations, data theft and event ransomware infections on your network.  Even with web encryptions helping to keep things safer, there are now cases in which encryptions are being used to hide malware within your encrypted traffic.  Encryption also means less visibility and control.

Introducing the latest solution from Citrix’s NetScaler Security portfolio: NetScaler Secure Web Gateway (NetScaler SWG).

NetScaler SWG Capabilities:

  • NetScaler SWG solutionprovides Complete Visibility into encrypted traffic allowing security operations teams to inspect, analyze and control web traffic. NetScaler SWG solution acts as a forward proxy for all outgoing traffic enabling deployment of security policies with ease.
  • NetScaler URL Threat Intelligence Subscription is a cloud-based service that blocks access to millions of malware and phishing websites. This subscription service is available as an add-on option to NetScaler SWG solution.
  • NetScaler SWG solution with NetScaler MASprovides User Behavior Analytics based on user risk score.

Business Benefits for Security Operations Teams:

Organizations can Reduce their Business Risk and Increase Employee Productivityby protecting their employees against cyber security threats like phishing, and malware threats.

  • Security Operations teams gain deep visibility and real-time user behavior analytics to protect against malware threats.

Organizations can Ensure Corporate and Regulatory Policy Compliance.

  • Organizations have the visibility and control they need over encrypted traffic while ensuring compliance with their privacy, regulatory and acceptable user policies.

Organizations can Increase their Operational Efficiency by using singe pane of glass view for real-time visibility, analytics, and reporting.

  • Single pane of glass view through NetScaler Management and Analytics System (NetScaler MAS) provides real-time visibility, analytics, and reporting. Within seconds drill down to a per-user web usage view to understand events and correlated threats.

Learn more on Netscaler and other Citrix Products from our Product page.

Arup: Engineering Firm Transfers Files Worldwide with Citrix ShareFile

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Arup: Engineering Firm Transfers Files Worldwide with Citrix ShareFile

Arup Group Ltd. is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London, U.K., which provides engineering, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of the built environment. The firm has over 13,000 staff based in 92 offices across 42 countries and has participated in projects in over 160 countries.

The Challenge

Transferring their work to their clients all across the globe.  Sending Digital Models, Documents and CAB files from their custom built transfer system (which was capable of handling files of up to 2GB) proved to be inadequate as the years went as the size and amount of files needed increased.  Longer upload speed and download speed frustrated both employees and their clients.  This caused 60% of their employees to start using personal file transfer services, however these 3rd party services lacked effective security and control.

The Solution

Arup looked at many file based sharing solutions, but they ultimately chose to go with Citrix ShareFile Enterprise.  The simplicity of sending files of any size and the ShareFile Microsoft Outlook Plug-in which allows for file sending within the email client for optimal use and convenience were big factors in their decision.  Not only did this solution give them a better way for file sharing, but it also helped increase their employee agility by securing the access of files from their mobile devices.  Also by setting up multiple storage zones in each region to serve as local storage, it helped increase the speed of sharing to the point that their employees now use it for any file over 5 MB.

The Key Benefits

Below are the key benefits that Arup experienced when they adopted Citrix ShareFile

  • Increased Productivity by accelerating workflows
  • Improved client service through more effective file sharing
  • Secured and controlled shared files

Arup is still expanding its ShareFile Implementation and plans on introducing mobile functionality soon while already viewing Citrix as one of its key technology partners.